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Two years later: Has safety at Alyeska improved?

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Alyeska’s response yields many improvements although concerns remain

Screenshot of cover of report
View 2023 report (PDF 4.1MB): “Assessment of Risks and Safety Culture at Alyeska’s Valdez Marine Terminal”

A 2023 Council report identified some serious safety risks at Alyeska’s Valdez Marine Terminal. Since that time, the Council has been monitoring the actions taken by Alyeska to improve the work culture and more effectively promote an atmosphere of safety. Many areas have improved over the last two years. Some improvements are still in process and some areas of concern remain.

The 2023 report raised concerns about whether the terminal was operating safely and in compliance with regulations. The report was authored by Billie Pirner Garde, a national expert on safety culture for work environments in energy industries. In the report, Garde made a series of recommendations aimed at improving the situation.

Alyeska’s efforts to improve

When the report was first released, the Council was encouraged by its reception. Alyeska President John Kurz spoke to the Council and said that he and Alyeska’s executive team were taking the report seriously.

Alyeska formed an internal team to follow up and develop a plan to address the issues.

“Alyeska has engaged in a substantial amount of work to address the recommendations directed towards them,” says Donna Schantz, executive director for the Council.
Auditors reviewed worker safety and processes at the Valdez Marine Terminal

Alyeska conducted internal reviews and contracted with a third party to audit various factors that affect safety at the terminal.

Auditors compared the current safety system with federal requirements for “process safety management.” OSHA developed this set of standards to help industries safely manage the hazards of working with highly hazardous chemicals. This guidance helps recognize, evaluate, and control risks that could occur while working with hazardous materials.

The auditors identified some areas of improvement in Alyeska’s systems. Alyeska reported that corrective actions have been taken, and there are currently no outstanding audit findings. They also worked on better aligning their documentation regarding process safety management, including the creation of a compliance manual, and conducted additional training.

Alyeska also reviewed their deferred maintenance backlog. Among other issues, Alyeska improved how they evaluate risks associated with work orders. This ensures that higher-risk orders are identified appropriately. Alyeska has prioritized existing work orders and is monitoring any past due and upcoming commitments.

A few issues still remain. A review of human factors was conducted, and a program to help address and mitigate human-related accidents is still being developed. Alyeska also continues to review and assess recommended practices for establishing safety systems.

Alyeska working to encourage culture of safety

Garde’s report recommended mandatory training for supervisors to encourage a stronger safety culture. Alyeska has completed that training.

Alyeska also reported that they continue to develop and improve their employee concerns program. The success of that effort is yet to be determined.

Updated recommendations

Garde recently developed some additional recommendations. Among those, she recommended the Council develop a set of performance indicators that would serve as an objective measure for comparison when talking to Alyeska about concerns.

Remaining concerns

Though many of the safety issues have been addressed, the Council still has concerns: Alyeska has lost key staff with extensive institutional knowledge in recent months; gaps in regulatory oversight and monitoring remain unaddressed; and the Council and contractor Billie Garde continue to receive reports from employees concerned about safety issues.

GAO report looks at Joint Pipeline Office

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Image is screenshot of GAO report.
The GAO’s report is available on their website: Trans-Alaska Pipeline: Clarifying the Roles of Joint Pipeline Office Agencies Would Enhance Safety Oversight.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, examines the current status of the Joint Pipeline Office, or JPO.

The JPO is a group of six federal and six state agencies that oversee various parts of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. The office was formed after the Exxon Valdez oil spill by the Bureau of Land Management and the Alaska Department of Natural Resources to coordinate oversight between the 12 agencies. The last time the GAO reviewed the JPO was in 1995.

In 2023, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan asked the GAO to conduct the assessment. They specifically asked the GAO to examine the current structure of the organization; how the organization has changed over time; whether the group effectively collaborates to ensure the safety of the pipeline and terminal; and whether the organization has sufficient personnel, resources, and authority to complete its mission.

The Senators’ request came about after a Council-sponsored report found that, among other issues, there had been a reduction in oversight of the terminal in recent years.

“We’ve just begun reviewing the GAO’s report and its recommendations,” says Donna Schantz, executive director for the Council. “We are extremely appreciative of the efforts of Senators Murkowski and Sullivan for requesting this report.”

The JPO: Then and now

“Since its formation in 1990 in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill, JPO has played a critical role in overseeing the 800-mile pipeline and marine terminal that comprise the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System,” the GAO’s report says.

Until 2004, the JPO’s oversight activities “focused on producing Comprehensive Monitoring Program Reports, reviewing pipeline projects, preventing and responding to oil spills, preparing for the renewal of the TAPS right-of-way agreement, and responding to Alyeska employee concerns,” according to the GAO’s report. The group previously shared an office and published reports on its activities, which it no longer does.

The report says that, according to stakeholders, JPO “scaled back” its work due to a decrease in TAPS projects that required oversight. The report also notes that JPO’s oversight of TAPS was also impacted by shifts in agency roles.

JPO’s current role is unclear

The GAO report notes that the JPO currently functions “as a forum through which participating agencies share information and coordinate activities.”

The GAO recommends the JPO would benefit from outlining the intended outcomes of its current activities “including those aiming to inform the public of its oversight efforts.” This would “enable JPO agencies to work toward shared goals and ensure accountability.”

“Clarifying roles and responsibilities would enhance coordination among JPO agencies and help JPO identify any potential gaps in oversight,” according to the GAO.

The need to identify gaps in regulatory oversight was a significant finding in the Council’s 2023 report (see also “Two years later: Has safety at the terminal improved?”).

“We are encouraged to see the GAO recommend that the JPO needs to clarify its roles and responsibilities,” Schantz said. “The Council had also hoped that the GAO would identify potential gaps in regulatory oversight. Instead, while mentioning that potential gaps are a concern, they have recommended the JPO do this review for gaps themselves.”

In its 1995 review, the GAO noted that the JPO’s success depends on having adequate staffing and funds over the long term. Government agencies have been experiencing reductions in staffing, budgets, and resources for years, with losses increasing at some federal agencies in recent months. The Council is concerned about the JPO’s current capacity to monitor the complex systems at the terminal, along with their ability to follow through on the GAO’s recommendations.

“Everyone involved wants to make sure that oil is transported safely in Alaska,” Schantz said. “Comprehensive regulatory oversight is of critical importance to help ensure that adequate safety systems are in place to prevent devastating events from occurring. This also supports industry and their desire to increase energy development by providing consistency and timely guidance.

Volunteer Spotlight: Where physics meets the sea

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Pegau is a member of the Council’s Scientific Advisory Committee, a group of scientists and citizens promoting the environmentally safe operation of the terminal and tankers through independent scientific research, environmental monitoring, and review of scientific work.

W. Scott Pegau wasn’t born in Alaska, but it’s the place that feels like home.

When Pegau was a kid, his family moved to Alaska so his dad could attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks, or UAF. His dad was later hired by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, so the family stayed.

After graduating from high school in Nome, Pegau joined the Navy for 6 years, then headed to his dad’s alma mater, UAF, and later Oregon State University for graduate school. Pegau chose to major in physics.

“I avoided the natural sciences,” Pegau says. “So we both got a good laugh, because when I did come back up to Alaska, I was hired as a fisheries biologist.”

His journey from physics to fisheries is what makes his background particularly helpful in his role as a member of the Council’s Scientific Advisory Committee.

Atmospheric physics to ocean physics

For a while after undergrad, Pegau worked with atmospheric models at UAF’s Geophysical Institute. He liked the work but found that he missed being close to the ocean. He also found himself interested in the physics of light.

He combined these interests in a Ph.D. in oceanography from Oregon State University, where he focused on how light interacts with ocean water. He also studied how to use remote sensing technologies to gather ocean data.

He uses the colors of the sky and the ocean to explain how light can provide information. Blue light waves scatter across the atmosphere when they encounter particles.

“So when you look up, you see blue.”

He says sunrises and sunsets appear red because red light waves make it far enough into the atmosphere to reach the clouds. Pegau says the ocean appears blue for a different reason.

“Blue light has the greatest chance of reflecting back out of the water because it’s least absorbed.”

He says the light interacts differently according to what’s in the water. Particles or features in the water such as sediments or plankton can be identified by examining how light waves are reflected or absorbed.

“Each particle has a different kind of scattering characteristic,” he says. “If you’re trying to figure out how light transmits through the ocean, you’re trying to put those two things together: How is it being absorbed and how is it being scattered?”

Over the years, he traveled all over the northern hemisphere studying the optical properties of the oceans and looking at remote sensing methods to gain more understanding of the ocean, its currents, and inhabitants.

North to Alaska

In the early 2000s, he came back to a job at Homer’s Kachemak Bay Research Reserve. Finally settling in Cordova, he has coordinated and managed research projects for the Oil Spill Recovery Institute for the last 18 years.

Born out of the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the institute funds research projects that improve oil spill response and seeks to better understand spills’ impacts to people and wildlife.

He’s also authored or co-authored papers on topics including remote sensing of spilled oil, the circulation of ocean currents, and the effects of crude oil on herring. The herring fishery in Prince William Sound disappeared a few years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill and has never fully recovered.

As he now prepares to retire, he’s excited to finish up a study on how the atmosphere and ocean conditions affect herring populations.

“I’ve really wanted to work on this particular project,” Pegau says. “I’m trying to determine what makes for a good herring year. Different factors come into play. Are the winds holding the larvae near the shore? Is the food the right size or the right type for the larvae?”

Volunteering for the Council

Pegau has been an ex officio member of the Council for many years as part of his work for the institute. He joined the Scientific Advisory Committee this past year, answering the committee’s call for an oceanographer.

He says he’s always appreciated the committee’s commitment to good science. He says their work is important for keeping Prince William Sound safe from spilled oil.

“If you want to protect resources, you better have good information.”

Council’s archives hold valuable lessons

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Donna Schantz

Since its inception, the Council has placed a high value on keeping a historical record of documents related to the transportation of oil through Prince William Sound. This includes information that documents the background and rational for implementing many of the safeguards put in place based on lessons learned from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Our archive today is home to over 36,000 files containing a wealth of information.

Many of these documents are scientific studies and technical reports sponsored by the Council, dating back to the early days of our existence. A great example are two studies conducted by Dr. Richard Fineberg in the early 2000s, one on the profits from the oil industry and another on how the industry plans to clean up its facilities after oil no longer flows through the pipeline.

Dr. Fineberg, who died in 2024, conducted studies for other organizations, and our internal document archives contain a record of many of them. A look through some of these is enlightening, such as his 1996 report titled “Pipeline in Peril – A Status Report on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.” This report was sponsored by the Alaska Forum for Environmental Responsibility, which is no longer in business, to look into reports from “concerned employees” that Alyeska had been cutting corners, putting employees and the environment at risk.

These sentiments echo statements made by concerned employees starting in 2022, as documented in our 2023 report by Billie Pirner Garde titled “Assessment of Risks and Safety Culture at Alyeska’s Valdez Marine Terminal.”

Who is paying attention to these details?

After the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the U.S. Congress found that complacency on the part of industry and government was a contributing factor to the incident. The writers of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 included a call for the creation of citizen councils to give citizens a voice in the decisions that can put their livelihoods, resources, and communities at risk.

Our organization is one of those councils. Our 2023 Garde report is a reminder that our mission and purpose are not only still relevant, but needed just as much if not more today. Fortunately, upon receiving the Garde report, Alyeska initiated a hard look at their safety culture, technical capacity, process and policy, as well as the safety concerns brought forward, and has taken actions to address many of the concerns.

Why is oversight important?

Walt Parker, former member of our Board, had a long history of involvement with the oil industry in Alaska. Among the many roles he served during his career, Parker was appointed chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission that was created to investigate the causes of the Exxon Valdez spill. The Commission issued 52 recommendations to improve national, state, and oil industry policies, including one recommendation that called for the creation of our Council. In the forward to their final report, “Spill: The Wreck of the Exxon Valdez – Implications for Safe Transportation of Oil,” Parker described their efforts in the 1970s to design a system that would prevent spills from the soon-to-be oil transportation facility.

Parker wrote that the 1989 spill “could have been prevented if the vigilance that accompanied construction of the pipeline in the 1970s had been continued in the 1980s.”

Instead, as the commission discovered, by 1989, complacency and cost-cutting had returned, leading to disaster.

Fighting complacency

The Council was created, in part, in anticipation of a time when memories of the Exxon Valdez oil spill begin to fade. When there is no one left who can recall the smell of the oil, the sight of suffering wildlife, the feel of anger and despair because livelihoods may have been destroyed, it is more likely that protections may begin to appear stale, burdensome, and unnecessary.

The fact that there has not been another major oil spill in our region since 1989 is a testament to the safeguards put in place following that disaster. These safeguards are built on many lessons learned over time; historical knowledge that is key to maintaining our present system of prevention and preparedness. It is critical that industry, government, and citizen leaders remain cognizant of that history. The Council will always advocate for maintaining and improving our current systems, as well as staying vigilant against measures that could allow complacency to weaken existing protections.

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